


you make my heart beat like thunder, louder and louder

by sibley (ferns)



Series: Fern's Femslash February Fics [1]
Category: New Super-man and the Justice League of China, The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character of Color, Deaf Character, F/F, Femslash February, First Kiss, Lesbian Character of Color, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 04:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17676743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Avery had always known her weakness for people with big, crooked smiles and eyes that shine so bright they can light up a room. Especially when they were a girl. Especially when they wereMingming.





	you make my heart beat like thunder, louder and louder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gayveryho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayveryho/gifts).



> Femslash February prompt for Wombat, who asked for Avery/Mingming with Deaf Mingming. Apologies if I got the CSL sign for 'love' wrong, I was going off two different videos (one where someone only moved their hand down to their wrist and one where someone brought it all the way to their shoulder), and went with what was in the middle-I'm happy to correct it, though!

Avery had always known her weakness for people with big, crooked smiles and eyes that shine so bright they can light up a room. Especially when they were a  _girl._  Avery loved girls with slightly crooked teeth to match their smile, girls who played with their hair when they were nervous, girls who were just a little shorter than her, short enough for them to have to tilt their head back to look at her, girls who said “Avery!” with just the right amount of exasperation when she used her powers to cheat at a video game, girls who had picked hearing aids that had cute little _flowers_ on them…

Girls exactly like Mingming, because Mingming was _perfect._

Mingming was so perfect that Avery had signed up for defense lessons at the same place she took them. Mingming was so perfect that Avery always made sure that they were standing next to each other while the man who replaced I-Ching’s teaching position instructed them. Kenan always tried to be next to her on her other side, and sometimes he succeeded, but usually he was intercepted by his shirt twin before then. Avery always felt vindicated when he was.

Mingming was so perfect that Avery would sometimes run halfway across China to get her a bag of those Numb & Spicy chips she loved so much (the local convenience stores are almost always sold out, and Ahn refused to admit that he had a secret stash of chips that he _could_ be sharing). Just to see her smile. Just to hear her thank her and give her a hug.

Mingming was so perfect that sometimes Avery even let her _win_ at Deadly Kombat X. Sometimes. Rarely. When she knew Kenan wasn’t looking.

Mingming was perfect. And single, now that she and Kenan weren’t together anymore. Perfectly single. And so was Avery! Single, not perfect. But everyone on the team seemed to be expecting Kenan and Mingming to get back together, including Kenan himself. Heck, even everyone in their martial arts class expected them to get back together! And they were all so old Avery doubted they even knew who Super-man _was!_

At least Mingming hadn’t said anything about that yet. Kenan had pouted and moped for three days after they broke up. He said it was mutual, but Deilan told Avery that Mingming had broken up with _him-_ it hadn’t been a mutual thing. She’d said that like she’d expected Avery to be happy about it. And she was! She totally was! Just not for the reason everyone thought, because for some reason the same team of her friends that thought Kenan and Mingming were seconds from getting back together also thought that _she_ had a crush on Kenan. And on Ahn.

The latter was sort of true. Ahn was cute, and Avery had thought she might want to ask him out once upon a time. But after getting to know each other and bonding over being born outside of China (even though they’d still grown up practically across the world from each other), those feelings had faded and been replaced by the sure knowledge that Ahn was probably her closest friend. Her closest friend her age, anyway, since Wally was several years younger than her and Meena was more like a big sister than anything.

But Kenan? No way. He was her friend, and he was the de-facto leader of the team by virtue of being freaking _Super-man_ even if Deilan or Baixi probably could’ve done a better job on most of their missions, but she’d never felt so much as a hint of romantic feelings toward him. And when she had felt them toward Ahn, it hadn’t been like with Mingming. She’d wanted to make Ahn laugh, and hearing him talk to her made her feel good.

With Mingming, hearing her talk seemed to fill Avery’s chest up with butterflies, and watching her sign made her feel like she’d just swallowed some of her mom’s homemade hot and sour soup. It took a lot of effort not to vibrate all the way into invisibility whenever Mingming laughed, and whenever Avery had a moment of peace her thoughts wandered to the stray freckle next to Mingming’s eye, the way she pressed her lips together when she was struggling not to smile, how she half-skipped sometimes instead of walking…

Avery wanted to tell her-or maybe it was more like she _needed_ to tell her-that she loved her. That she was _in love_ with her. But every time she tried she tripped over her own tongue. She’d even run back to America to ask Wally and then Barry for advice, and while they’d both been encouraging, neither of them had been very helpful. Meena had suggested a love letter, but when Avery tried that she’d been too nervous to hand it over, and then too nervous to hit send on her text when she’d copied it all down, so writing was off the table.

But Avery still _wanted_ to tell her. She needed to know if Mingming felt the same way. She didn’t even know if Mingming was straight, but she’d acted the same way toward Avery after Avery had announced to the team that she was bi, unlike almost every other (potentially) straight girl that Avery had ever met, so… At least if Mingming wasn’t into girls, it wouldn’t be Avery’s fault. Mingming would let her down easy because of her sexuality, not because there was something about Avery that was wrong.

Every time Avery walked-well, ran, usually-into a room she knew Mingming was in, she told herself that this time she would tell her. This time she’d do it. This time she’d touch Mingming’s arm to get her attention if her hearing aids were turned off and tell her that she loved her. And she’d wait there holding her breath to see if Mingming felt the same way.

But she never did. She said something else instead. Complemented Mingming’s new haircut or told her whatever ridiculous thing Kenan had done this time. Every. Single. Time.

Except this time. This time, Avery told herself, things would be different. She’d brought a bag of Mingming’s favorite chips as a peace offering, just in case, and she repeated what she had to say over and over and over again in her head until it meant practically nothing. She pushed the door open and took a deep breath, marching determinedly over to stand in front of Mingming, who was playing Deadly Kombat IX (Avery knew that she preferred that one because the fighting was apparently more realistic).

And then, practically right on schedule, as soon as Mingming finished beating the level and looked at Avery, waiting for an explanation of why she was standing there doing nothing except for stare at her and breathe heavily, Avery’s script went right out the window. But not before she managed to blurt out at a near supersonic speed, “I’m in love with you!”

...In English. Which Mingming was partially fluent in, to be fair, but that was only when it wasn’t spoken by someone who had had issues with talking to fast _before_ they’d been struck by lightning. And Avery knew it was really, really hard to read lips in another language even when someone was talking at normal speed. 

Still tongue-tied and with her heart hammering a frantic drumbeat against her ribs, but suddenly desperate to get her confession over with, Avery pressed her open palm against her chest near her collarbone, then held out her other arm with her thumb up and ran the hand that had been on her chest down from her thumb to her inner elbow, before finally breathlessly pointing at Mingming.

As soon as Mingming’s eyes went wide with comprehension, Avery closed her own eyes, bracing herself for… Something. She wasn’t really sure what.

The next thing she felt was Mingming softly pressing her lips to hers, and Avery opened her eyes just in time to see the shining spark of pink lightning that jumped the bridge between their lips.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm augustheart on tumblr-currently taking prompts for Femslash February 2019!


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